Stop supermarkets from wasting food on our behalf

cepheus

I suspect a fortune in energy could be saved just by walking down your local high st. and shaming all those shops with their doors left open in winter!

moonrakerz

Sheffield_Tiger wrote: »

I was absolutely astounded and disgusted that my local Lidl, which I walked past on the night of Xmas Day, was brightly illuminated, not only with the exterior signage, but all the interior store lights were on!

Why?

Perhaps it's part of their insurance - they get cheaper rates ( and you get cheaper prices !) if they leave their lights on at night.
Perhaps staff had been working removing all the Xmas offers.
Perhaps there is some other very sensible reason !

paulwf

There's 2 parts to this in my view, how to reduce the amount of date expired food by supermarkets and then how to put this date expired food to good use to avoid it going to landfill.

However the first step has to be readily available and reliable (preferably independently audited) waste figures for each supermarket. Unless we know the size of the problem and how it varies between each chain we can't do much about tackling it. These figures should be available, as all supermarkets have to log the waste to keep their stock files and financial records up to date.

It would be interesting to see how big the problem is in percentage terms, I sometimes think the amount of waste generated is high but then remember 1,000 crates of fresh food came in that morning so it is actually a very small amount.

There also needs to be a balance...reducing packaging can increase the amount of stock that gets rejected...sometimes solutions need to be properly thought through.

Does anyone know of a supermarket waste "league table"?

Ken68

http://www.tristramstuart.co.uk/

Sainsbury is the worst Paul, and the Co-op the best

paulwf

Thanks Ken, I'll try and pick the book up sometime.

I'm only involved in the fringes of the food industry at present but know there's more to commercial waste reduction than "give it to charity". There are definitely easy and practical ways companies can reduce waste though.

I liked the pictures on the site of the M&S sandwich factory. I used to work for Prets and used to take the veg offcuts home and just buy a pizza base and make a lovely pizza out of them. It's not just date expired food but all the waste from making "perfect" food that needs to be considered.

cepheus

from the retailer onwards it seems that 28% is wasted by ourselves and 15% by food retailers:

UK households waste 6.7 million tonnes of food every year, around one third of the 21.7 million tonnes we purchase. Most of this food waste is currently collected by local authorities (5.9 million tonnes or 88%). Some of this will be recycled but most is still going to landfill where it is liable to create methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The remaining 800,000 tonnes is composted by people at home, fed to animals or tipped down the sink.

�� Most of the food we throw away (4.1 million tonnes or 61%) is avoidable and could have been eaten if it had been managed better. Truly unavoidable food waste, like vegetable peelings, meat carcasses and teabags, accounts for 1.3 million tonnes a year or 19% of the total, with the remainder being ‘possibly avoidable’ food waste – items such as bread crusts that some people choose not to eat and potato skins which can be eaten when food is prepared in certain ways but not in others.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/foodwewaste_fullreport08_05_08.pdf

retailers alone generating 1,600,000 tonnes of food waste per year

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_waste_in_the_United_Kingdom

Ken68

Not just the supermarkets, Ceph. I've had relatives turn away good home grown veg because of not being perfect shape , for example a fanged carrot or parsnips not white as snow.

cepheus

Whilst consumers are the main culprits it always takes two to tango. Food retailers use a range of techniques to encourage consumers to buy more than they really need, eg. 3 for 2 since they know the third one may be thrown away if it is a perishable item. Perhaps larger packs should subsidise smaller ones so the price/kg is kept constant and there should always be a means to seal the packet once opened.

I'm afraid the Tesco's of the world are allowed to do what they like in search of profits. Perhaps a higher corporation tax bill should be imposed in proportion to the measures taken to minimise waste and discourage unnecessary buying. A radical step admittedly in a culture committed to eternal growth!

paulwf

Anyone mind if I post a random thought for the day?

These are some apples I put out on display the other day:

Pink Lady loose

Pink Lady x 4

Pink Lady x 4 organic

Pink Lady x 6

Pink Lady x 8

Questions:

- Could we eliminate the 4, 6 and 8 packs and just have loose, cutting out 3 out of 4 product lines could quarter the wastage level.

- As the 4 pack was on a multibuy offer it wouldn't make sense for anyone to buy the 6 or 8 pack. Therefore these are going to have a very high wastage rate so why stock them?

- The organic pack is shipped from America and comes in a plastic tray with plastic lid and cling wrap. Is organic best?

- On the eco theme we're surrounded by some of the best apple growing orchards in the world, do we need Pink Lady's at all given they generally aren't UK grown?

- The organic 4 pack was the same price as the non-organic. Which means either the non-organic price was inflated to make the multibuy look cheap or they could just switch to all organic?

Sorry for my random wafflings, just wanted to highlight with these 5 product lines that if we looked for *real* consumer choice and questioned every product line we could reduce waste to a fraction of current levels, reduce food miles and reduce prices. Pumping out more and more product lines isn't the way forward.

cepheus

I suppose the market based answer is that more and more choice is what consumers want or else supermarkets wouldn't do it. 'Pink Lady's' sound like a trendy brand to me and this will lead to a higher carbon footprint and waste. No doubt consumers are driven by brands and false economies as you mention.

We need to attack the problem in two ways,

short term by regulation, all dumped food produce must incur a waste tax (to reduce waste at the supermarket) & all perishables must have the same cost per kg (to reduce waste by the consumer).

and long term by education, look for local produce, don't be duped by brands which are often the same for more. Publicising these facts may be more useful than the usual brainwashing rubbish we see on adverts.

We keep voting in politicians which encourage less public intervention and greater corporate power though encouraging consumer greed and manipulating choice though advertising so don't hold your breath!

No doubt if a retail CEO has a hint of this they will be straight onto their local friendly politician with a complaint and donation to the party!

I ramble on, but there are more endemic problems. Political parties must be funded publically and we need to reduce the power of the corporations.

Of course if there was a world cap on greenhouse gases, all this would sort itself out in the price, so there are theoretical market based solutions as well. This seems even more unlikely though.